A Little Update

Yesterday I returned from my second ever business trip, that is if you count driving from Polk City, Fl to West Palm Beach, FL to pick up some computer monitors, and paint your brother’s house a business trip. The purpose of the trip was to interview for a Sound Technician with World Help’s Children of the World Choir. I was offered the position, and I have accepted it. Thank you to all the numerous people who prayed for a smooth interview, I really appreciate it. It feels good to have a job where I’m using my college major.

At the end of June I will be moving my stuff back to Tampa, where it will rest safely and soundly at my parents house. Then towards the end of July I will be heading back to Lynchburg, Virginia area to begin training for the upcoming tour. The commitment of the tour is 10 months, meaning I will be on the road every day for ten months straigh, which may sound terrible to you, but sounds great to me, I’m really excited about it. There’s just something incredible about waking up and being in a new city every day. There are two Children of The World teams, East Coast and West Coast, I have put in my desire to be on the West Coast team, it will give me a chance to see some beautiful sights I either have not seen before, or haven’t seen in a while.

I hope this serves as a bit of a help to clear the air of any confusion surrounding what is taking place in my life.

Everyone’s a Friend, If Only for a Second

Barack Obama, our nation’s president addressed congress tonight in what could only be described as a joint session of congress, as it is too soon in his young presidency to declare a full state of the union.

Obama faced a difficult task, creating a sense of urgency and explicit cause for action on the state of our economy, while remaining optimistic about the daunting, long term challenges ahead. President Obama also needed to create a sense of congruence between his platform of fiscal responsibility with tax cuts and spending; in addition to the nearly $2 trillion in stimulus plans.

From a history of Public Address standpoint, while far more pointed and direct, Obama and his speechwriting team did a terrific job of mirroring, and mimicking the famed “Fireside Chats” of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The plain language, and simple parallelism reminds us of the discourse of a President communicating to the citizens of the nation instead of only communicating to congress, and letting the citizens try and interpret that for themselves.

I’m no staunch conservative, or bleeding liberal, I fall somewhere in the middle, and with that in mind, here is my take on the speech, and the issues (for what it’s worth).

The stimulus plan is not an immediate solution, it’s not a bandage to stop the bleeding, to continue with that metaphor, it is more of an antibiotic ointment, or saave if you will that is designed to minimize the scar and promote healing once the bleeding has stopped. In a recent conversation with a co-worker, the question “do you think the stimulus package will turn the economy around before the end of the year” was posited to me. In a short answer, NO! The stimulus package, won’t turn the economy for some time, but it will help to right the ship slowly. President Bush had a stimulus plan that he spent $152 Billion (according to Wikipedia, so take that with a grain of salt), that was supposed to turn the economy immediately. That plan failed, because it was a short term fix. The key to righting the economical ship, and prevent it from sinking is a long term solution, and one that probably won’t yield any hard results until 2010, or possibly 2011.

As far as balancing the budget, Obama was a somewhat sophomoric in his plan here. He continually referred to it as the deficit “we” inherited, an obvious jab at Bush. It’s no secret that I am not running out to get my George W. Bush commemorative plate set any time soon, but you can only beat a dead horse so much. The fact is, it’s America’s deficit, not former President Bush’s. I did think that Obama created a sense of congruence in terms of balancing the budget long term, and cutting the deficit. Ultimately the more the deficit is reduced, the less inflation we will face, and that is the key to righting the ship economically.

Obama is my president. I did not vote for him, but he is my president. He’s in charge of my nation for at least the next few years of my life. There have been many before him that weren’t good, and there will be many after him that aren’t good. Right now, I have to give him my vote of confidence. If nothing else, these are rocky times, and I’m just glad to be along for the ride, its like a roller coaster.

How to lead when your followers can leave whenever they want

Now I’m no John C. Maxwell, or any other author that would show up on a google search of authors in leadership. But, I sat in class yesterday and listened to Craig Miller pastor of Grace Baptist Church here in Cedarville discuss how to lead a group of people when they can leave whenever they want. It is easy to lead a group of people when you have a paycheck that you can hold over their heads to get them to do whatever you want, but not so easy when at any time, for any reason, without serious consequences your constituents can just up and leave with no ramifications felt.

So how do you lead them? There are several key components to lead people in this group, these concepts can be applied to the local Kiwanis group, or Rotary Club, or Knights of Columbus, and even, better yet, the local community of believers.

The first is to give your constituents a sense of ownership.  Note that I did not say patronize your constituents with menial tasks that a trained chimpanzee could accomplish. However, give your constituents a role that makes them feel like the organization will benefit from their service to it. Whether that includes keeping attendance records, and calling people ahead of time to remind them of meetings, or whether that means asking them to be apart of a childcare group, give them some role that lets them claim partial ownership for the success of the organization.

Another thing is communicating clearly and concisely. Yes, in organizational communication there is the need for strategic ambiguity, which uses ambiguous and broad terms to get different parts of the organization to agree with the ambiguous statement, instead of bickering over the different terms and semantics of the words. However, strategic ambiguity is shallow leadership, its the first level, any leader can use strategic ambiguity, anybody can say something like our organization is committed to quality, thats strategic ambiguity, sounds good… but what does quality mean, and how committed is the organization. This is where clear and consice communication comes in.

A Leader must be able to articulate the mission of the oranization, or the direction the organization is going. First the leader must determine what the course of action is, and then figure out a way to clearly and concisely communicate the direction/mission to their constituents in a way that gives the constituents a sense of ownership of the mission, and a sense of accomplishment for the success of the organization thus far.

Ultimately people want to feel like they belong to the organization, and that they are influential in the success of the organization; if this were not the case, chances are they wouldn’t have gotten involved in said organization if the didn’t feel like taking ownership of part of it. People also want to know where they are going. When I was in middle school, I was forced to attend the youth group at Lake Carroll Baptist Church and I’ll be honest, it was terrible. It was terrible for many reasons, namely the duo of people that led the youth group: Steve Channels and Tom Brooks. Now, don’t get me wrong they are great people, and good golfing buddies; but they were not good leaders. They did not have a vision for where the youth group was going, a vision for how to teach youth the Bible,  or even a working understanding of the Bible, a prime example of someone managing to rise to the level of incompetence. Now, we would take these mystery trips, that were designed to be fun, we’d show up at the youth room on a friday night, with 20 bucks, and not have a clue where we were going, and the thrill of the night was the suprise destination. While that made for a fun friday evening once every other month or so, but made for a terrible youth group experience because there was no vision, and no articulation of that vision.

Where there is no vision, the people shall perish Prov. 29:18

Practical steps

1. Define a mission

2. Determine tasks that will provide a sense of ownership to your constituents

3. Communicate the vision you have defined for your organization

4.Follow through and build into the lives of your organizations members

The crushing effects of not getting what you want

I live in America, I should get what I want all the time; I mean afterall, if I shouldn’t get what I want all the time I would live in a country America has yet to develop… With that in mind, I don’t ask for much, I’m not asking for a new car every year, or a house even. All I am asking for is that school be canceled on account of snow, or that there would be a two hour delay Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Come on America, pull through with a cataclysmic weather event so I don’t have to wake up at eight for class. Afterall, I am a citizen and you owe me at least this.

The Golden Rule

Mark 12:30-31 says ” Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and whith all of your mind, and with all of your strength; and love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these (New International Version)

A few years ago ( circa 2005 summer) I was helping the youth director at my church repaint the youth room, and above the sole entrance and exit I  paintedthose words in nicely crafted bubble letters. However, at the time I painted those, the concept of love was lost on me.  A few months ago I was having a serious conversation with a friend about what it means to be a Christian, or Christ Follower. The two of us drew on the past experiences we had being forced to go to church whether we wanted to or not, and being forced into christian education even though the educations we received were subpar. During the course of the conversation those words that I painted over the doors of the old youth room at Lake Carroll Baptist Church in Tampa, Fl came to my head. The crux of what it means to be a follower of Christ is to actively, ACTIVELY, love God, and Actively, ACTIVELY love people. The scripture says there is no greater commands than these. Somewhere along the line, I had forgotten those words, and what it means to love people. In a sense, I still don’t know what it means to Actively love people, and can only be characterized as passively loving people (and even that is a gracious stretch). I picked up a copy of the irresistable revolution and there are some legitimate things in there about actively loving people that are helpful and practical. I haven’t finished reading it yet, so I can’t yet pass judgement on the remaining part of it.  In his book Shane Claiborne menitons that one thing he learned about how to actively love people is that if you are going to be pro-life, then you better be ready to help some mothers out financially. I thought that was a great point, because all too often Christians are hypocritical when they take a pro-life stance, but take a stance against helping the poor. Love your neighbor and help the poor (James 1:27).  As a christian, I myself, and others need to start authentically loving people consitantly. What would it look like if all the people who attended your church started loving one another instead of backbiting and fighting? Think about how much more effective we would be if we lived out the gospel we that we preach.

Love yourself, and your neighbor today,

but ultimately Love God, and Follow Jesus

The Medium is the Metaphor

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985), is a book by Neil Postman in which he argues that media of communication inherently influence the conversations carried out over them. Postman posits that television is the primary means of communication for our culture and it has the property of converting a culture’s conversations with itself into entertainment, so much so that public discourse on important issues has disappeared. Since the treatment of serious issues as entertainment inherently prevents them from being treated as serious issues and indeed since serious issues have been treated as entertainment for so many decades now, the public is no longer aware of these issues in their original sense, but only as entertainment.

Postman argues that communication media inherently shape the conversations that can be carried out. To take an extreme example, it is not possible to conduct a discussion of philosophy using smoke signals; the conversation is too complex and long to be conducted over a medium of such low bandwidth. Postman in particular describes two forms of mass media, print and television, and the ways they influence the content carried across them.

Television as a medium is inherently assertionless; a video of an event makes no assertions whatsoever. It merely displays something that occurred. For example, an advertisement for McDonald’s often says nothing about the burgers, their nutritional value, their cost or position in the market compared to the competition; instead, it shows happy, smiling children eating McDonald’s burgers, followed by a happy clown.

A viewer can like or dislike a McDonald’s advertisement, but he or she cannot accept or refute it, because there is nothing to accept or refute.

Postman distinguishes the Orwellian vision of the future, in which totalitarian governments seize individual rights, from the vision offered by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, where people medicate themselves into bliss and voluntarily sacrifice their rights. Postman sees television’s entertainment value as a “soma” for the contemporary world, and he sees contemporary mankind surrendering its rights in exchange for entertainment. (Note that there is no contradiction between an intentional “Orwellian” conspiracy using “Huxleyan” means, which is an argument advanced in the later book The Unreality Industry: the deliberate manufacturing of falsehood and what it is doing to our lives by Ian Mitroff and Warren Bennis [New York: Carol Pub. Group, 1989]. Postman evidently did not disagree, since he provided a blurb for this book.)

The essential premise of the book, which Postman extends to the rest of his argument(s), is that “form excludes the content,” that is, a particular medium can only sustain a particular level of ideas. Rational argument, an integral component of print typography, cannot be conveyed through the medium of television because “its form excludes the content.” Because of this shortcoming, politics and religion get diluted, and “news of the day” is turned into a commodity. The presentation most often de-emphasizes quality; all data becomes burdened to the far-reaching need for entertainment.

I give this book two thumbs up for anyone interested in communication theory and philosophy.

Focus on the Family has lost their focus.

Recently Focus on the Family, arguably America’s most ignorant source of political activism and far right propoganda wrote a letter from the future back to the present, to warn of what President Elect Barack Obama’s years in office would lead to. It can be found here. Focus on the family should live up to their name and just focus on the family. Dr. James Dobson and his cohorts are experts  in child development and family dynamics, but when it comes to politics or social structures they are ignorant and all to eager to share their misinformed view, and be covered under the protection that they are christians, and if you don’t agree with them, chances are you are not a christian, and you’ll burn in hell.

In this letter the following information is said will happen under the Obama administration

- The Supreme court leans liberal, 6 to 3.
- Terrorist attacks have occurred in 4 US cities.
- Christian doctors, nurses, counselors, and teachers have either been fired or quit.
- Iran perpetrated a nuclear attack on Israel, drastically reducing the size of its borders.
- Pornography is freely displayed.
- Inner city violent crime has dramatically increased due to gun control.
- Russia has occupied 4 additional countries.
- Gas tops $7 a gallon.
- Euthanasia becomes commonplace.
- Blackouts occur throughout the country.
- Homosexual marriage becomes law in all 50 states.
- Campus ministries, Christian adoption agencies and Christian schools nearly cease to exist.
- Home school families emigrate to Australia and New Zealand by the thousands.
- Bush officials are jailed and bankrupt.
- Taliban-like oppression overtakes Iraq and death of American sympathizers reaches millions.
- Homosexuals are given a bonus to enlist in the military.

Interesting facts of this are, President Bush the poster child for focus on the family politics (ignorance and idiocy) was the first president to fall victim to a large scale domestic terrorist attack since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, so I doubt Barack Obama will have any domestic terrorism to worry about.

The George Bush Administration sat back and watched as gas went from $29 a barrel the day we invaded Iraq to somewhere near the $170 mark at the height of this summer. Since the campaigning started in full force and Obama took control of the polls, gas has been steadily declining to somewhere in the neighborhood of high $30’s low $40’s a barrel, under the inflation percentage of a stamp.

The Part about Russia occupying four different countries is what makes me laugh the hardest, it seemed America occupied four countries under the Bush Admnistration, but that’s okay right? WE’RE AMERICA AND WE DO WHAT WE WANT! But seriously, why is it alright that America occupies countries against their will but when someone else does it we get all up in arms?

If I didn’t know better, and was as ignorant as Focus on the Family, I’d say this letter easily could have been written from the year 2008, just with a few wrong facts..

To my reader: Please don’t view focus on the family’s opinions as those of christians, but rather as that dumb kid in highschool who only listened to what his neo-conservative parents said instead of forming their own opinion. The true gospel of Christ is one of love, and not one of dissention.

In that spirit love your neighbor today, go out of your way to make someone’s day special.

Smoke a Bowl of Green, Put America in the Black

I don’t use marijuana currently, nor will I ever use it again, and I understand that it has damaging effects almost as great as alcohol but….

17.7 Billion Dollars were spent on the War on Drugs in the Fiscal Year 2000, that is an alarmingly high number. There are also some very disturbing statistics on there from an potential revenue as well. It costs 22,000+ to incarcerate one prisoner for one year.

With a going rate of marijuana at around 10.41 per gram, it would make good economic sense to decriminalize it, tax it, and reap the benefits. I’m not advocating pure and total unrestrained use of it. I would propose the same restriction to be placed on it that alcohol has. Must be 21 years or older to use it,  it would be illegal to consume it away from properly licensed places, or in the comfort of one’s one home.  Would be illegal to operate a motor vehicle while under the influence of the substance.

As far as generating revenue, its a no-brainer. Tax the grass, and people are still going to buy it, heck its ILLEGAL and people still buy it. Take the money that is generated from the tax on it and lower everybody’s federal income taxes. This seems like a great way to benefit America, reducing the amount of money the governement is spending to incarcerate people who use and sell this substance, and in turn taxing the substance, and regulating its use. It combines two of my favorite phrases of political jargon, go green, and economic stimulus plan.
Work it out America, make it happen,

I’m tired of paying high taxes.

The Evangelicals Screwed Up!

The video “The Jesus Factor,” put on by PBS, speaks dramatically to the effect of politics and religion and how they fuse together. This video takes us on the journey of George Walker Bush’s political journey, and his spiritual journey. It shows how Bush’s political victories went hand in hand with his values of faith, morals, and his appeals to the conservative evangelicals in the Republican Party for proof, two-thirds of all people that attended synagogue, mosque, or church once a week voted for Bush.
Unlike his father George Herbert Bush, George Walker was able to combine conservatism and compassion to ensure victories where his father failed to align the two and suffered defeat to Bill Clinton, arguably the most charismatic and compassionate president that America has ever had. He showed his compassion by installing Faith Based Initiatives and bringing a renaissance to traditional American/Christian values.
The purpose of this video is very simple, it shows that Bush’s desire, against all other checks and balances to support religious bigotry by creating the faith based initiative program, and using his religious bias to exclude others. Despite congress’ overwhelmingly anti faith based initiative vote, President Bush wrote an executive order to allow, and encourage faith based initiative. Government support for faith based initiatives has predominately gone to Christian Organizations with the few exceptions of five (5) interfaith coalitions with Christian directors; which only goes to further the claim that Republicans, and Christians for that matter are grossly biased towards themselves. As though it would seem George W Bush has single-handedly carried out to a “t” the conservative evangelical agenda in Washington. Overall, the intended perception of the video is to bring the viewer into an understanding that faith based initiative is the only way to go. Also, that faith in Christ is the driving force behind our nation.
The video attempts to the viewers experience with many examples, and clips of Bush in the past drawing on the Bible and faith in debates, and post September 11tth attacks. Americans have the experience of seeing these things first hand, and the video simply serves to remind us of these events while slanting towards conservatism and Christendom. The determining factor as to what makes or prevents this from being effective is the bias of the viewer. Those that are gripped by conservatism and Christendom blindly hail George Walker Bush and his faith as paramount to the success of America. Those that are more liberal in their thinking feel that the separation between Church and State should be kept and that if there is a faith based initiative program it should be one that spans all faiths and not just one; after all that is bigotry.
The video definitely does seem to present the traditional, conservative aspect of American culture. There is no liberal, or moderate slant in this film at all, it is seemingly all biased towards the conservatives. While it presents traditional American values, it also provides little tolerance for non-traditional values such as same sex marriages. This could lend itself to having those outside of the United States think that we are very stubborn and non-progressive; displaying a blatant disregard for those who are different than the ones who express conservative traditional American family and moral values.
After seeing this film, the perception of the viewer will change dramatically. Depending on the amount of noise, and type of noise, the message will either further a person towards conservativism and a desire for faith based initiatives to excel in America; or if the viewer is biased towards liberalism and the separation of Church and State, then they will most likely be enraged. Now there are both positive and negative ways each group will change their perception after viewing this documentary. Those biased towards conservativism might decided that what is happening is right, and that America should keep fighting the good fight for values and morality; or they will feel as though America is a too predominant a religious bigot, and decided that only supporting one religion is not the answer, in a nation that promotes “religious freedom” it seems as though only the Christians ever get a chance to prosper under the government, and the current administration. On the other hand the liberals might either embrace the idea of a faith based initiative on the grounds that they are successful, and they enrich America; or they will completely hate the current administration for its religious narrow-mindedness.
The only reason that this film would not serve its purpose to augment the perception towards faith based initiatives would be the bias of the viewer. The film was well produced and well written, a flawless documentary when it comes to reporting on a single vantage point only. The bias of the viewer is truly paramount to whether any message will be received or not according to the Mathematical Model of Communication as discussed in class lecture, the role of “noise” or interference plays the largest role in whether or not a message through whatever channel will be received positively or negatively. The bias of the liberals could be that George W Bush had no political recourse for establishing these faith based initiative, but solely because he thought it was a good idea did he ignore congress’ overwhelmingly negative vote and sign an executive order. Which isn’t the only time he’s ignored congress, but that is another topic for another day.
In summation, the film “The Jesus Factor” was a well produced documentary extolling the accolades of George W Bush’s faith based initiatives and the importance that his spirituality has played in his tenure as President of the United States of America. The message was clear, and received by viewers, but dependent on their bias as to how it was perceived. Overall, it did a great job of communicating a clear thesis which brought about a choice for the viewer to make regarding whether to accept it positively or negatively. Thank you for reading.

the dichotomy between electronic media and print media

The First Amendment protection for the Electronic Media should be just as complete as the protection for print journalism. Initially, when the First Amendment was penned by our forefathers there was no inkling of an idea as to how far technology would expand, so there is no way to provide for a potential electronic media at that time. As a result all forms of media should enjoy equal First Amendment protection; especially since the electronic media is becoming more prevalent than print media, with declining readership in newspapers, and rising viewership of television news, and the advent of the internet news has been huge, it is a matter of time before print media goes the way of the dinosaur, which is to say becomes extinct. A nonchalant glance at modern media regulation quickly reveals a disparity between regulation of print media and regulation of electronic media, mainly that there is much less regulation of print media than there is of electronic media. This is because the electronic media, and broadcasting in particular, were treated differently by the U.S. Congress at their inception. The rationale for this difference in treatment for broadcasting was that the airwaves were a scarce, public resource, and that messages traveling on these public airwaves could potentially reach, and indeed affect, a great many more people than print messages. Therefore, the government thought that, in the public interest, it was necessary to regulate broadcasting. Furthermore, broadcasting was seen as a form of interstate commerce, which, under Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution, Congress had the authority to regulate. Other electronic media were categorized similarly and are regulated under the Communications Act of 1934 as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Print, however, is only regulated under the ownership, antitrust, and criminal laws shared by all businesses in the United States.
The forefathers of America wanted to ensure that there would not be harsh censorship and prior restraint of the dissemination of information, as it is the dissemination of information to a mass public that prevents tyrannical rule. The First Amendment was written into the United States Constitution to prevent the censorship that took place in the colonies, and in England with their system of mandatory licensing. The forefathers had the foresight to provide protection of the media so they could effectively hold the government accountable. The first Amendment is not intended to protect falsity, or damaging information, but rather to offer a shield to hide behind to disseminate true information that the public needs in order to be responsible citizens and engage in self governance. This is why the Court has upheld First Amendment protection for the dissemination of information found in the public record, (Cox v. Cohn).
As a child I often heard the phrase “with much privilege comes much responsibility,” this is very applicable to the media as well. Given the high level of first amendment protection, the media have a responsibility they must meet. The media must meet and serve the public interest. The electronic media is compelled to do this more so than the print media on account of the licensing issues with the Federal Communications Committee. A newspaper has no license therefore does not have to serve the public interest. However, broadcast technologies do have to obtain licensure from the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) in order to operate over the electromagnetic spectrum. With that in mind, it places a greater emphasis and accountability upon the electronic media to serve the public interest. In journalism, the media must provide the public with pertinent and true information they need to know in order to be informed members of society and engage in self governance. If they are not serving the public interest and providing the public with accurate information, the public will not be in a position to act informed when it comes to holding elected government officials accountable.
The First Amendment is not a blanket coverall by any means. There are certain types of speech that are not and should not be covered under the First Amendment for obvious reasons. Libel and Slander are not covered in absolutes under the First Amendment, if a journalist acts with malice and disseminates false information, they should not be able to cower under the canopy of First Amendment rights. Since the people of this “great” nation depend upon the media for their information to keep themselves informed and capable of participating in self governance, the media should not be allowed to publish or broadcast information that is knowingly false that could jade, or misinform the public; in doing so the media is violating the service they provide, and the reason they have First Amendment protection in the first place.
Given the current climate in the media, as defined in the introductory paragraph, now more than ever, it is imperative that the Supreme Court abandon the differentiation between the different forms of the media, and start applying the First Amendment equally throughout the different types of media. Eventually there won’t be any need to look back at precedents set for newspaper or radio, because eventually both those mediums will unfortunately become extinct. The Supreme Court should recognize the changing climate, and prepare for where it will take them in the future, and provide universal first amendment protections across all media platforms.